Your Worst Nightmare

Mike CannonWednesday, May 14, 2014

verything you feared is about to come true. For sixteen years, one card has haunted the dreams of players around the world. When it enters the battlefield, it induces sheer terror in the hearts of your opponents. With Vintage Masters soon to be released on Magic Online, the nightmare is returning. Of course, you always knew it would.

So long as you have a creature on the battlefield, you can sacrifice it to return Yosei to the battlefield, then sacrifice Yosei to bring back anything else. With six mana, you can do this every turn to keep your opponent from even untapping. If you have two copies of Yosei in the graveyard you can do it with just three mana per turn, sacrificing one to bring back the other.

You'll need to end the game eventually, so I've included a rather appropriate win condition. Kokusho, the Evening Star will drain 5 life from your opponent each time you sacrifice him, ending the game in four turns. You can even swap him back and forth with Yosei every turn to continue the lock at the same time.

A Whale of a Tale

Another creature that combines quite nicely with Recurring Nightmare is Great Whale. If you have three lands and two copies in the graveyard, you can swap them back and forth indefinitely. A fourth land will let you produce an arbitrarily large amount of mana as well. With six lands you can do it with only one Whale and any other creature, and seven lands gives you infinite mana with that. Although it gets far fewer style points, Palinchron can substitute for Great Whale, since it has the same ability.

This time, the smaller creatures needed to start off Recurring Nightmare will serve as the win condition as well. Blood Artist can drain your opponent of all his or her life, whether being switched back and forth with the Whale or simply watching from the battlefield. The other card I'll use is Bloodrite Invoker. You'll need the extra land to make infinite mana, but once you do, you can cast or return Bloodrite Invoker to win the game. Even if your opponent has a removal spell, you can activate the Invoker seven times in response to end the game before it even leaves the stack.

Fact or Fiction and Forbidden Alchemy can get you the cards you need while dumping the rest in the graveyard, useful for getting those Whales ready to reanimate. Buried Alive is a more direct route to the same goal, putting two Whales and an Invoker in the graveyard to make sure the combo can get rolling right away. Meanwhile, Hero's Downfall can buy you time by killing troublesome creatures or Planeswalkers.

Fightmare

It's time to battle it out and see which of these nightmares is the most terrifying. In the duel of dreams, there can only be one victor. Will dreams of Great Whales induce an Ahab-esque madness, or will the stars align for Yosei? Let's go down to the arena and find out.

Nightmare Whale passed the turn with no play, and Starry Nightmare cast Recurring Nightmare, sacrificing Banisher Priest to bring back Karmic Guide, which returned Yosei. An evoked Shriekmaw killed Yosei, triggering its ability and locking down Nightmare Whale for a turn. The Whale couldn't do anything on its turn, and Starry Nightmare cast a Yosei before ending the turn.

Uncovering Secrets

The nightmare is over for now, but there's something even more sinister on its way. For some time now, a conspiracy has been brewing at REDACTED. I've been trying to pin down who's involved, but so far I've only identified one member: REDACTED. I can only hope my editor, REDACTED, isn't REDACTED. If you get this message, I need someone to go to REDACTED and look for a REDACTED. Everything I have on the REDACTED will be there. Once you have it, deliver it to my contact at REDACTED right away. He'll be waiting for you at REDACTED. Godspeed.